Chess will never be solved, here's why

I can just imagine the reference book you'd have to use to interpret the code!

It looks like some people don’t understand what it means to “solve” chess. Solving is a mathematical term, it means you have a complete understanding of *every* move, and you know what to do for any move by your opponent.

for example, tic-tac-toe has been solved, it means that there is a chart, that tells me for every move my opponent makes, what to do, to get the best outcome(win or draw), and in tic tac toe, if both players play optimally, it is always a draw. This is not some engine that tells you if the position is “better” you know every move to a draw or win. In the same way, checkers has been solved, it is way more complicated, but it is possible, there is a chart that you can check, it tells you not what move will give you the best position, but what move will get you the best result. The problem with chess it that there are just too many positions and things you can do, so you can solve it in the same way, it will just take a computer larger than the earth longer than the universe has existed, so you just can’t solve it.

what computers like stockfish do is looking at what move gets you the best position, and that is why they can lose, and why they can be better. If anyone has seen a game between engines, they sometimes loose, and they don’t make the same moves in the same position, the game is NOT solved.

@6876

"It looks like some people don’t understand what it means to solve chess."
++ Solved can mean 3 different things.
Ultra-weakly solved means that the game-theoretic value of the initial position has been determined,
weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition,
and strongly solved is being used for a game for which such a strategy has been determined for all legal positions.

"The problem with chess it that there are just too many positions"
++ Chess has 10^44 legal positions, of which 10^17 are relevant to weakly solve chess.

"it will just take a computer larger than the earth longer than the universe has existed"
++ No, you confuse strongly solving with weakly solving.
It takes computers 5 years to weakly solve chess.

"what computers like stockfish do is looking at what move gets you the best position"
++ Computer engines like Stockfish can calculate from the opening towards the 7-men endgame table base if given enough time

Uri Blass got his title back in 2011, when engines were still weak at certain parts of the game, and a guy with strong hardware could get many wins. And he can only speculate what's happening in ICCF right now, as he has not played a single game since more than 7 years ago.

Today it is way harder to get rating points and eventually a title, as the engines have become much better in all parts of the game, but fortunately enough you still have the chance to beat players which are just replicating the computer moves... 

where did you get the number 10^44? Furthermore how did you get it down to 10^17 ?? Please clarify.

I am not confusing weakly and strongly solving, I was taking mostly about weakly solving but strongly solving is harder than weakly solving so it doesn’t change what I was saying.

it doesn’t take computers 5 years to solve chess, otherwise they would have already done it.

Every so often there is an “engine tournament”, different chess engines are playing chess games against each other, beginning from a set of known starting positions.
If it is possible to weakly solve chess in 5 years, it is possible to solve for each of those positions in about 5 years, so someone just needs to have about 20 computers working in the background for 5 years and the competition is gone? no, it is not possible in such a small time, again, otherwise someone would have already done that. 

Also, what do you mean by “computers”? My laptop at home from 5 years ago isn’t the same power as the google super computer, and speed is just a matter of computer power, so 5 years of what computer.

I am not familiar with the term “7-men endgame table base” but I assume this means to the end of the game or to a solved position, no, it cannot, not because it is impossible but because it is not what it is coded to do, it is coded to give you the probability best move in a reasonable amount of time, not to give you all the move in a few years. 

If you are talking about a computer coded to solve the game not about an engine, then ”yes”, because “given enough time” doesn’t mean anything, is enough time 2 years or 10^20 years? so theoretically a computer could solve any positions “given enough time” but that enough time would be billions or trillions of years (or more depending on the power of the computer) in most positions.

bumpity bump bump

     Who put the bump in the bump in the bump bah bump bah bump?

     Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

At last we're getting some sensible posts after all that @tygxc crap!

You trying to outbump me?

That's it! 10^44 bumps!

I thought so.

If, for any reason, chess engines can't be made faster then they'll be made different colours and we'll be told that's important.

Yes, the period while hardware advances were so fast was extremely bad for software writing. I did the first year of a computing degree and switched to philosophy after the first year because I thought that any talent I had in software writing would be completely wasted. No point doing computing if you had ability at that time. Early 90s. It's only changed comparatively recently. My son works in computing and he says he has a job which should stretch his abilities and cause him to enjoy it. He's 35 and he only got the job this month. Previously he was getting bored, I think.

@6879

"where did you get the number 10^44?"
++ Here: https://github.com/tromp/ChessPositionRanking

"Furthermore how did you get it down to 10^17 ?"
++ The vast majority of the 10^44 positions makes no sense and cannot result from optimal play from both sides. See the displayed 3 random samples: more than 3 rooks / bishop on each side.
A better estimate is 10^37 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.09386.pdf 
However a random sample of 10,000 such positions show none can result from optimal play from both sides either. That leaves 10^37 / 10,000 = 10^33 positions.
Now multiply by 10 to accomodate also positions with 3 or 4 queens that do arrive with optimal play by both sides, as we know from ICCF. 10^33 * 10 = 10^34
To weakly solve Chess we only need 1 strategy for black to draw against all white opposition.
So instead of w white moves with each w black responses, we only need to look at w white moves with 1 response each. So instead of w*w positions only w*1 = w = sqrt (w*w) positions. Thus Sqrt (10^34) = 10^17 relevant positions.

"I was taking mostly about weakly solving but strongly solving is harder than weakly solving"
++ Strongly solving needs all 10^44 legal positions,
weakly solving only 10^17 relevant positions.

"it doesn’t take computers 5 years to solve chess"
++ It does take 5 years to calculate 10^17 relevant positions.

"otherwise they would have already done it." ++ So far nobody has put up 3 million $ to rent 3 cloud engines and hire 3 grandmasters during 5 years.

"Every so often there is an “engine tournament”, different chess engines are playing chess games against each other, beginning from a set of known starting positions." ++ TCEC, every year. They impose slightly unbalanced openings between 0.3 and 0.7 to avoid all draws.

'If it is possible to weakly solve chess in 5 years, it is possible to solve for each of those positions in about 5 years" ++ No. Weakly solving Chess only needs 1 strategy for black to draw.
Many of the imposed openings fall outside of that. If black can draw with 1 e4 e5, then 1 e4 c5 may draw as well or not. 

"someone just needs to have about 20 computers working in the background for 5 years and the competition is gone?"
++ 3 cloud engines of 10^9 nodes/s or 3000 desktops of 10^6 nodes/s.

"it is not possible in such a small time, again, otherwise someone would have already done that."
++ 3 powerful computers of 10^9 nodes/s and 3 grandmasters during 5 years is a huge task, which costs 3 million $. Nobody has funded or started such a project.

"5 years of what computer"
++ 5 years of three 10^9 nodes/s cloud engines, or 5 years of 3000 desktops of 10^6 nodes/s.

"I am not familiar with the term 7-men endgame table base”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase

"I assume this means to the end of the game or to a solved position"
++ All positions of 7 men or less have been strongly solved.

"it is not what it is coded to do"
++ It is. In TCEC the engines hit their 7-men endgame table bases.

"it is coded to give you the probability best move in a reasonable amount of time"
++ If you give more time it gets deeper and hits the 7-men endgame table base.

"is enough time 2 years or 10^20 years?" ++ Enough time is 5 years on three 10^9 nodes/s cloud engines or on 3000 desktops of 10^6 nodes/s.

"so theoretically a computer could solve any positions" ++ No, any legal position would mean 10^44 positions, that is strongly solving or a 32-men table base and that would be too much.

Just remember that every time Tygxc says something that tries to sound as if it is derived from some theoretical solutions agreed upon by others, he's full of crap.  He's the only person that believes his made up numbers.  Everything bolded above, that he tries to pass off as accepted possibilities, are just things he has conjured himself.

- His reduction to 10^33 is inconclusive and non-scientific.

- The "only one Black strategy is required" assertion does not hold up.

- Even the square rooting is conjecture based on Checkers, not a proven reduction that can be made for Chess as well, it's a guess/an assumption.

- Tygxc's "nodes" is a unit of measure that does not carry over to his pet theories, he's counting apples and giving us misleading results in oranges.

Any one of these collapses his whole house of cards, so being wrong about all of them...well...

To be honest what is the point of chess being solved because it doesn’t make much difference to human play it will just change similarly to how engines have. For engines it will make chess tournaments pointless because the best engine will never lose and will always draw similar engines. No one cares about engine tournaments as much as human ones 

There are 400 ways the first move from each side can be played and although a lot of them will be losing for a side many will not. Humans might be able to remember Rui Lopez main line down to a draw but other things will be played and people will lose 

@6896

"it doesn’t make much difference to human play"
++ It probably does. If one human player has access to say 10,000 perfect games with optimal play from both sides, then that would give him an advantage.

@6897

"There are 400 ways the first move from each side can be played"
++ Weakly solved reduces this to 20 or less. That is where the square root comes from.
You only need 1 black move that draws for each white move.

"although a lot of them will be losing for a side many will not"
++ Weakly solved does not call for all black moves that do not lose. Only one is enough.

"Humans might be able to remember Ruy Lopez main line down to a draw"
++ The Ruy Lopez down to a draw may entail like 10^15 positions, i.e. about 10^13 games.
No human can remember that. However, 10,000 games i.e. 10^6 positions is possible.

"other things will be played and people will lose"
++ A weak solution of Chess based on Ruy Lopez also has to cope with say Vienna, Center Game, Bishop's Opening, Scotch, Four Knights, Italian,
as well as something against 1 d4, say Queen's Gambit Declined,
something against 1 c4, say Reversed Sicilian, something against 1 Nf3, say Reti...
On the other hand that weak solution of Chess then does not need to handle Petrov, Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, Dutch, King's Indian Defense, Grünfeld Indian Defense, Nimzovich Indian Defense, Queen's Indian Defense, Queen's Gambit Accepted...

Seriously, no-one is going to buy this as any kind of a solution for chess. It isn't adding ANYTHING to what we already know or to chess theory. The entire, artificial idea of "weakly solving", "strongly solving" etc is complete nonsense because in practice, they overlap considerably.

In any case, the supposed definitions that are in use "ie weak solving is a strategy that .... etc" or "an algorithm that .... etc" is also nonsense, since in each case we're discussing series of concrete moves, which is very much NOT a strategy, except that in its simplest form, a viable strategy in chess is "any series of moves which does not contain any move or moves that lose by force".

So the supposed experts here place all their faith in other experts whose conceptions of the strategy of solving chess isn't just archaic but ludicrous. And these people, being called "games theorists", cannot do wrong because of their title, and everyone believes them, even though they obviously come from a bygone age and never thought well and properly on this subject in their entire lives.

Tygxc is pushing this rubbish on the pretext of educating others, tacitly supported by people who cannot see that the entire project is built on sand, because they're only intent on trying to get tygxc to recognise their own very limited objections.

Unless the foundations of "solving chess" are reassessed from ground up, there's no point at all in any of this twaddle. No group of scientists would dream of approaching an area of research without assessing and reassessing it. A reliance on the potentially outworn and useless ideas of others is an obvious and elementary mistake, which makes nonsense of this entire thread.